Clawing to Victory
Plot Mystery Box Challenge 2 When the top nineteen contestants arrive in the MasterChef kitchen, they are told to watch their fingers when they lift up their mystery boxes because the main ingredient they are cooking with tonight is alive. The contestants lift up their boxes to find that there are crabs crawling on their chopping boards. While the contestants are cooking their crab dishes, Gordon, Graham, and Christina discuss how the dungeness crab because of the large amount of meat contained inside it. Gordon says the crab depends on size; if the crab is big, you get more meat, but if your crab is small like a tiny blue crab, you would get less meat. Hetal explains how she is a vegetarian and how she has never cooked crabs before. However, she does know what flavors go well with the dish, so she is making a blue crab with tomato curry and rice. Claudia explains how her family always cooks with seafood, so she decides to make a rock crab and dungeness crab soup. She says Mexico has some of the best flavors, and she hopes the judges like them when she presents the dish to them. Shelly shows her fear toward crabs, while Olivia is confused about how to cut open the crab. After Gordon explains, he asks what she is cooking tonight. Olivia says she is thinking about creating a crab cupcake Benedict, and Gordon agrees that it sounds nice. Amanda is making crab cakes with a mango salsa and an avocado cream sauce. She has an advantage because she lives in Seattle, Washington, where great seafood is located. Christina walks over to interview Charlie. Charlie says that in his home, New Orleans, Louisiana, he cooks a lot of seafood because his family would eat crab about three times a week He is planning to do a pan seared blue crab with spicy hollangdaise sauce. With twenty minutes remaining, Graham decides to talk to Jessie. Jessie explains how he is very familiar with crabs because he is from Louisiana and thinks he will have a huge advantage of winning this Mystery Box Challenge. He decides to cook dumplings in fish stock soup with marinated crab and apple salad. Graham compliments how it smells awesome. The judges discuss all the different flavors being cooked tonight. Graham explains how Jessie seems very excited and confident he will win the challenge. Christina is worried about Olivia because she has never worked with live shellfish before. Gordon is not very concerned about her because she is making a crab cake Benedict, which sounds delicious. One more minute is left, but not everyone has plated their food yet. After the contestants plate their finishing touches, Gordon announces Amanda as one of the top three Mystery Box Challenge dishes. Amanda presents her crab cake dish with mango salad and avocado cream sauce. She used dungeness crab because Seattle, Washington, her home, is a popular and delicious flavor. Gordon says her crab cakes are delicious, moist, crispy, and sweet. He said the avocado cream sauce is amazing, but more Granny Smith apple is needed. While Graham tries the dish, he says it is delicious. He also suggests adding some heat to the dish, like using Thai chili pepper. When Christina tries the dish, she asks what the avocado cream sauce is made of. Amanda says the sauce is made of avocado, a little bit of Greek yogurt, lots of lemon juice, some cilantro, and salt. Christina explains how the Greek yogurt is very light and refreshing, which makes the dish seem bright-flavored. Graham chooses Olivia to bring her dish up to the judges. She made a crab cake Benedict with poached egg and roasted asparagus. Graham hopes that the egg oozes when he cuts open into it, and it does. The dish is very favorable, strong, and there is a natural sweetness of the crab. He said the asparagus is probably the weakest thing on the plate due to the lack of salt. Gordon loves the style of the dish and says it shows great finesse and says he wants to see more of this dish from Olivia because this dish was a great job. Christina chooses Jesse to bring his dish up to the judges because he is clearly familiar with crab. When he brings it up, he says he is from Louisiana, where crab is very popular. He made a crab dumpling soup with avocado and mango salad. After Christina tasted the dish, Jesse said he put peppercorn bacon inside the broth. Christina said that technique was very smart and the dish was delicious. Gordon also says the dish is delicious and he needs to cook like this every time he makes a dish. Gordon announces that the winner of the Mystery Box Challenge is Jesse. Elimination Test 2 Instead of going into the pantry, Jesse recieves his big advantage in front of all the contestants. He says he wants to send Stephen out of the MasterChef kitchen. One advantage is that he will not be cooking in the Elimination Test and will be safe from elimination. Gordon brings a box onto his stand and opens it, revealing something glowing. Jesse's second advantage is choosing which contestants will cook or bake tonight. Jesse chooses Derrick to cook, Vernonica baking, Dan cooking, Shelly cooking, Stephen cooking (as he wanted Jesse to choose for him), Tommy baking, Katrina baking, Kerry baking, Olivia baking, and Justin baking. In the pantry, many of the eighteen contestants choose to cook with corn. Veronica, however, wants something to bake with besides corn. The judges talk about how a lot of corn is being used tonight. Veronica says she's acting like she's cooking her first grandaughter's meal. Claudia plans to make sweet corn tamales because she has a favor of Mexican food, where corn is used a lot. She says Jesse didn't realize that he gave her a huge advantage. Graham and Christina decide to ask Justin what he is making. He cooks cream puffs with sweet corn and a candy corn sugar drizzle. Graham asks if he thinks that cooking with candy corn and sweet corn is excessive. He still doesn't understand what Justin is making. Justin's filling has a minor sweet tone to it, is not overly sweet, but still needs more salt. The judges believe that this may be Justin's last day in the kitchen. Charlie is baking corn grits with traditional barbecue shrimp over the top of them. Tommy is doing a sweet corn panna cotta with some caramel candy corn. Jesse thinks he is a weak link, so Tommy is trying his best to prove he is false. Gordon asks Shelly about her five-spice shrimp taco with roasted corn guacamole and a sriracha lime slaw. Christina walks over to Stephen. He is making a chipotle chili sauce for his chorizo corn tamale topped with roasted caramelized corn. He got this inspiration from Palm Springs, California, because it's the "Mexican heart" there. Gordon says Claudia's dish sounds delicious and very inventive. Christina also points out how Shelly's tacos are beautiful. Stephen's corn tamale with avocado and corn salsa is first judged by Gordon. According to Gordon, the tamale with the chorizo is a nice idea, and this is Stephen's best effort in the competition, so far. Graham says it is a refined, delicious street food. Christina calls up Veronica to taste her dish. While Veronica places her dish on the stand, she starts to think about how using corn in her corn crème brûlée with caramel corn is unusual. Hoping to hear a crack at the top of the crème brûlée, Christina hears it, and then tastes the dish. Unfortunately, Christina says Veronica's crème brûlée is not well done at all because it was cooked to high and quickly. She says the only thing that succeeded on the plate was the sugar on top of the crème brûlée. As Shelly brings up her dish, she talks about how her daughter and her always cook corn together. Gordon looks at her shrimp tacos with corn guacamole and says they look amazing. She used soy, corn oil, and a little bit of honey for the slaw. The shrimp was deliciously cooked, and Gordon says this is Shelly's best dish so far. Claudia brings up a sweet corn tamale with plantain puree and Mexican chocolate sauce to Graham. He loves the flavor because there is nice acidity. The only issue Graham has with the tamale is that it feels pretty dense. Gordon asks Justin to bring up his profiteroles with sweet creamed corn and candy corn caramel. Justin's profiteroles are under cooked and the inside of them are wet. Justin reveals he put canned corn in the profiteroles. Gordon asks if he is going home today; Justin says it is likely. Christina taste Tommy's corn panna cotta with orange and vanilla bean, and says the panna cotta has a beautiful texture. Her only concern is that she wishes there was a little bit more corn flavor, but she is very impressed. The last dish is Charlie's yellow corn grits with barbecue shrimp. In Gordon's opinion, his grits are disgusting because they are undercooked, bland, and the corn "is not the star". He expected more because cooking with corn is Charlie's comfort zone. The best dishes are Shelly and Stephen, making them team captains in an upcoming challenge. The worst dishes belong to Veronica, Charlie, and Justin. Christina asks Charlie to step forward because there were two worse dishes. As a result, Justin was eliminated due to the wet profiteroles. Quotes *''"Your grits give me the s****!"'' --Gordon to Charlie, after tasting his dish